Here's Looking At You
by CosmicImbalance
Summary: James Kirk and Leonard McCoy meet on a shuttle. It's the start of a beautiful friendship. One-shot.


For the first half of the shuttle flight, Leonard McCoy ignored the kid sitting next to him. Jim Kirk didn't seem to give a damn that McCoy wasn't listening to a single word he was saying, and that suited McCoy just fine. He could handle incessant chatter. He didn't want to have to deal with an offended seatmate, not when all of the other red-clad children aboard the tin can hauling his sorry ass to San Francisco were were sneaking judgemental looks at the two of them. Yeah, he noticed that. He was hyperaware. He heard every creak of the bulkheads, every rattle of the superstructure, every damned whisper, even with Kirk jawing away in his ear.

_Chirst, how the hell did I get into this_, McCoy thought, squeezing his eyes shut as the deckplates shimmied under his feet. He could feel the blood rushing away from his face, his stomach churning as he thought about the sucking void just a few inches of steel and glass from their little bubble of air.

"-bones!"

McCoy's eyes flew open and he looked at Kirk sideways. "Did you just call me _Bones?" _

"Yes, if that's what you're going to respond to," said Kirk, looking worried. "You look like you're going to throw up. Do you want me to unstrap you so you can hit the head rather than my shoes?"

"Do _not _unstrap me," McCoy ordered, clinging to his crash webbing. The thought of standing in the little tin can while it hurtled through space pushed him to the edge of hyperventilation.

"Look Bones, I'll help you over, no big deal," said Kirk, reaching for the snaps for McCoy's crash webbing. "I liked that bourbon you gave me, but it wasn't so good that I'd like to see it along with your digestive juices all over the floor."

McCoy threw up on Kirk in retaliation. It was honest to god self-defense, he'd swear it in court and he'd hypo any red jumpsuited sissies who might say otherwise.

Kirk just looked down at himself, a sort of bemused, resigned expression on his face. "Thank you for that contribution, Bones." And in an odd way, McCoy's whiskey-vomit (luckily for the kid, he hadn't eaten since lunch the day before) sort of rounded out Kirk's grease-spattered, bloodstained, sweatstained, alcohol-soaked appearance.

McCoy wiped his mouth, feeling slightly better now that someone was suffering with him. "Why the hell are you calling me Bones?"

"Oh, now you're feeling talkative?" griped the kid as he peeled off his beaten-up jacket and made a half-hearted attempt at mopping the mess off himself. "Seems to me Bones is the only thing you respond to, Bones. When you were freaking out before, I went through McCoy and Leonard, then Len, Lenny, and Leo. Then I went for doctor, doc, and sawbones, and it seems the latter half of the last one managed to snap you out of it."

"Yeah, well, it's McCoy," huffed McCoy.

"Too late, Bones. It's Bones from here on out." Kirk gave a blinding, shit-eating grin that McCoy wanted to flinch away from-that grin was capital-d Dangerous.

McCoy grumbled some sort of uncomfortable protest-if pressed, he would admit he might not have said actual words, just various negative noises. Kirk's grin grew a fraction, and became exponentially more terrifying.

"Glad we're on the same page, Bones," said Kirk. "Now, you're going into the Medical track, right?"

"Obviously," snorted McCoy. Like he would be caught dead fiddling with engines or piloting starships or anything that didn't involve staying terra-bound at Starfleet Medical. "And you? Engineering?"

"Nope," said Kirk, popping the 'p' like some numbskull teenybopper. "Command."

McCoy snorted again, this time in disbelief, and gave Kirk's shitty appearance a significant look. "Kid, you couldn't command your way out of a paper bag." Kirk pouted like a kicked puppy, damn him. "I mean," McCoy added hastily, unsure why he suddenly felt guilty, "You just seem like the type who'd rather be...active," he trailed off weakly, as Kirk started laughing. The kid had played him! Kirk wasn't the least bit upset-he had pulled the bambi eyes just to yank McCoy's chain-and dammit, it had actually worked. McCoy had been sure that his precious baby girl was the only one who could make a face like that and have it work on him. "Dammit, Kirk," he growled.

"No, no, I know, I do look like a Security guy or an Engineer. Hell, I was actually thinking about doing a subspecialty in Engineering. But I'm definitely doing Command," smiled Jim.

McCoy couldn't help but give Kirk a once-over again. The bruises on his face were purpling nicely-in McCoy's professional opinion, the kid's face wasn't broken, but it sure had come close. His jacket was on the floor of the shuttle, covered with liberal amounts of McCoy's vomit. He was stained head to toe, roughed up, and there was a wild light in his electric blue eyes that made McCoy shudder to think what kind of shit the kid could kick up at the helm of a ship.

"Right," said McCoy, finally just deciding to make sure he was on the far side of the campus from Kirk at all times-he was too old for the shenanigans the kid would no doubt get up to.

"Oh, don't look like that, Bones," Jim laughed. "I'm not _too _much trouble."

"Go tell it to the marines," said McCoy disbelievingly, nodding his head in the direction of a few cadets shaped like brick shithouses, who looked only slightly less roughed up than Kirk.

"Good one," said Jim, not bothering to hide a snicker as one of the bricks scowled ferociously at him. "But I really don't go looking for trouble. Trouble finds me."

McCoy lifted an eyebrow. "That's a cute line. Does it work with your parole officer?" he asked, half-sarcastically.

"Sometimes," replied Jim, still grinning cheekily.

McCoy's second eyebrow joined the first. "You're actually on parole? And you joined Starfleet?"

"The 'fleet's not above taking in the only genius-level repeat offender in the Midwest," shrugged Jim, the wattage of his grin dimming a little. "And somebody dared me to do it."

McCoy rolled his eyes. Genius his ass. Kirk was bright maybe, but certainly in the unfocused way that spoke of a school system unequipped to handle the smart kid and took to crushing him into their mold, leading to teenage rebellion that didn't end post-puberty. McCoy had been the kind of bright that led to him being the youngest head of trauma surgery that Atlanta General has ever seen. He knew, had they not literally been in the same boat, that he probably would have looked down a bit on Kirk with a sort of paternalistic disappointment that he really would have had no right to feel.

Instead, he just felt sorry for Kirk, much in the way he was feeling very sorry for himself.

"Life's really fucked us over, huh?" said McCoy quietly, after an almost uncomfortable pause.

Kirk nodded a bit solemnly, but then brightened. "But hey, I have good news and bad news."

At that moment, the shuttle gave an almighty lurch, sending McCoy scrabbling for a tighter hold on his crash webbing, eyes closed. "Shit, what's the good news, give me the good news!"

There was laughter in Kirk's voice. "The good news is that we've landed."

McCoy peeled his eyes open, and looked around. Indeed, the ship wasn't rattling or lurching anymore. The door was open, and cadets were starting to file off. A chilly San Francisco breeze, smelling of saltwater and sunshine, was ruffling his and Kirk's hair. McCoy sagged. "Mother Mary Jesus Christ."

Kirk unstrapped himself and bounced to his feet like a goddamn golden retriever. "Prayer's not going to help you now, Bones," he said cheerfully.

Much more slowly, McCoy unstrapped himself and pulled himself upright, feeling distinctly weak in the knees. "Why's that?" he questioned.

Kirk clapped him on the shoulder and shoved him towards the exit. "We've sold our souls to Starfleet, that's why," he said, sounding completely untroubled. They exited the shuttle together, lagging behind the red-suited cadets. Their classmates now. McCoy looked up at the overcast sky and thanked the heavens he was only here for a fast-track program in xenobiology that would, with any luck, having sitting pretty in a cushy position at Starfleet Medical within three years.

"Is that the bad news, then?" McCoy asked dryly. "Red shirts and military discipline?"

"Nah," replied Kirk, breezy as ever. "Bad news is the ride's over."

Despite his tone, McCoy was surprised to hear a hint of seriousness in his words. "You really want to be out there, don't you?" he asked, jerking his chin skywards.

"Exploring strange new worlds? Seeking out new life and new civilizations? To boldly go where no man has gone before?" Kirk turned his shiny grin on McCoy. "Who wouldn't want to be out there, on the final frontier?"

"Me," said McCoy firmly.

Kirk's grin didn't dim, but something shuttered in his eyes, just a little bit, and it hit McCoy like a punch to the gut for some reason. "Well Bones, it's been nice knowing you. I've got to go hunt down Pike," he said, offering his hand.

McCoy took it, but hesitated. He felt like he needed to explain something to Kirk-that McCoy just wanted to stay with his feet firmly and safely planted on Earth, within reasonable holocom distance of his little girl while also being far enough from his ex-wife, living the life he found comfortable and familiar. The final frontier wasn't for him, it was for mad, brilliant bastards like Kirk. But then again-wasn't McCoy just as crazy as Kirk? They were both running away, weren't they? Kirk from whatever demons haunted him in that shitty backwards Midwest town, and McCoy from a messy, life-altering divorce? They were both already headed straight into the unknown.

"Fuck that," said McCoy, releasing Kirk's hand. "Orientation shit's not for another four hours. Let's go get drunk."

Kirk's smile was like the sunshine breaking through the clouds. Actually, the sun was literally breaking through the clouds. And for one, gleaming amber moment, McCoy saw the man standing in front of him for the first time. Tall, broad-shouldered, blonde haired, eyes dancing with a light of their own as the sunshine cast his bruises into natural shadows and made his stained white shirt shimmer with the promise of gold.

He looked like a Captain.

Then the sun was back behind the clouds and McCoy was still blinking the dazzle from his eyes when Kirk said, "Let's go, Bones."

"Boldly?" sighed McCoy, already regretting-but-not-really his offer. That nickname was going to be hell.

Kirk clapped him on the shoulder again. "Always," he laughed.

McCoy sighed again, but let a half-smile grace his face. "I think you mentioned there's supposed to be some sort of infamous dive bar on the edge of campus?"

"Infamous?" Kirk exclaimed, bouncing on his toes. "The Engine Room is a legend! People talk about the Quantum Cafe all the time, and we'll have to try and sneak in there, but the Engine Room is the best place to get a drink in all of San Francisco, or so I've heard..."

McCoy tuned Kirk out again as they walked, content to simply let the younger man's chatter wash over him. The two of them were opposites in so many ways, he mused, but they were probably the two most non-traditional recruits Starfleet had seen in years. Maybe if they stuck together, they might make it out of the Academy all right. They'd likely go separate ways in the end, of course, split up by their assignments, but in the meantime, McCoy would take any port in the storm and Kirk was the one offering.

Even then, he couldn't shake the feeling that although the shuttle might have landed, the ride wasn't over. In fact, he thought, this might just be the start.


End file.
